Marwa Fayed’s Toy Run

Back in 2010, my beautiful wife Marwa decided that every child has the right to a toy; a loving friend and companion to nourish their creative minds. She gathered used and unwanted toys all around Cairo, sorting and wrapping them herself along with a couple of friends then distributed them to the less privileged children in Cairo’s orphanages. Back then the initiative was called Cairo’s Toy Run for Orphanages. After my love passed away suddenly and a few weeks later on the 1st of Ramadan 2013, I decided to continue what she had began along with her close friends and family. It was my way of finding strength to go on and to keep her beautiful memory alive. The project was renamed to Marwa Fayed’s Toy Run (“MFTR”).

The initiative grew quickly and in one week overachieved the humble target I had placed of collecting 200 toys. I increased that to 500 then 1000 and now only a few months later we have delivered over 10,000 toys to children in over 10 countries. We’ve also received toys from just as many nations including Ethiopia, India and Nepal. We also opened up chapters run by volunteers in Dubai, Doha, London, Riyadh and the best is yet to come. By the end of 2013 we had won Humanitarian Project of the Year by MBC and earned a grant to scale the initiative. We hired our first full time team member and now the initiative is days away from becoming a registered charity in Egypt.

Like Marwa, we believe that children need more than the basic needs of food and shelter. We firmly believe that toys are alive, have feelings, names and when need to be loved. The more we engage and play with them, the happier they are. When a child stops playing with a toy then it’s time for it to embark on a new adventure and make another child happy. The original child also will understand the joy of giving through this simple process and grow to become more giving members in their community.